I woke up to Sana kicking me in the ribs.

“Wake up!” She yelled at me, already in her uniform.

“Stop kicking me!”

“Then get up!”

“I am!” I exclaimed as I stood up from my futon. “Why’re you up so early?”

“I’m not,” she replied. “Your alarm didn’t go off. If you aren’t ready in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you.”

“Ok. I’ll hurry,” I said as I walked into the bathroom. I didn’t have time for a shower, so I just splashed a bunch of cold water on my face and brushed my teeth and hair. I put on deodorant as I walked back to our room, then tossed the half-used stick onto my futon.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Sana asked from the kitchen.

“We have choices?” I asked as I put on my uniform.

“Croissant, or parfait?”

“Parfait,” I said as I walked into the living room. Sana tossed a parfait package from the fridge as she finished eating hers. “Ready?”

“I’ve been ready for a half hour,” she said scornfully.

“It’s too early for your sass,” I complained as we left the apartment.

“It’s never too early for my sass,” she replied with a sly smile.

I dropped Sana off at Meio’s gates, just as I had the day before, then continued on my way to school. I had just about reached the gate when I heard a voice from behind me.

“Wait up Touma!”

I turned around to see Riku jogging towards me, dragging a girl behind him.

“Good morning, Riku,” I said, staring in confusion. “Who’s this?”

“ Oh! This is Shizuko,” he explained, introducing the girl to me. “We’ve been dating since our last year of middle school.”

“Hi!” Shizuko said. “You must be Touma?”

“Yeah, I am,” I replied with a soft smile. “Which class are you in?”

“I’m in 2-B,” she explained. “I’m not smart enough to be in the “A” class.”

“How’d it go with Yua last night?” Riku asked with a smirk.

“What do you mean?”

“…”

“Oh!” I said, realizing what he had meant. “It wasn’t like that. Just work, you know?”

“Sure, sure. Let’s get to class before Ms. Yamada gets mad,” Riku said. “I’ll see you later Shizuko!”

“Ok!” She responded, running off to her classroom.

“Just so you know, we have a practice exam today,” Riku explained.

“Seriously? It’s only my second day,” I groaned.

“Well, you did enroll in the middle of the semester,”

“I guess,” I said as we walked into the classroom. Ms. Yamada was already standing at her podium with a stack of papers. As we walked by, she handed both of us a packet and told us to wait for the rest of our classmates before we opened them.

“Hey, are you going to be ok on this?” Riku asked with a worried expression. “I mean, I know what you did on your entrance exam, but you must have studied for that.”

“Actually…” I said; I explained to him what had happened on my entrance exam, from how quickly I went through it to how Mr. Sakamoto retested me.

“You’re joking right?” He asked. “You have to be.”

“No,” I answered, scratching the back of my head.

“My number one spot is as good as gone,” he complained as he lowered his head onto his desk.

“I have no idea what’s going to be on this test, though,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “I doubt I’ll do very well.”

“Maybe,” he groaned. The rest of the class slowly filed in and sat down at their seats. Yua was the last one to arrive; I assumed it was because she was at the library again.

“Good morning class,” Ms. Yamada said as she handed out the last packet. “Once your exam is over, please feel free to leave for the day; I have nothing else planned.”

When she said that, the class started to mumble about after school plans.

“Please keep in mind that, even though this is a practice exam, it still counts for a grade. Take your time and do it right, please. You have four hours starting now.”

“Wait, she’s having us start already?” I asked Riku in a hushed tone. The only response I got was him hushing me as he looked at his test. I opened my packet and flipped through the pages, skimming each page as I did.

“This is less difficult than the entrance exam,” I thought to myself. Exactly half an hour later, I stood from my desk, collected my things, and walked to Ms. Yamada’s podium.

“Done already?” She asked as I handed her my papers.

“Yes ma’am,” I responded. “You said we could go home, right?”

“Go ahead,” she said, gesturing at the door. As I left the classroom, I could feel Riku staring angrily at me. It was still way too early for me to go home, so I decided to go to the library.

“I heard about your test,” Mrs. Ikeda said as I walked in. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I answered. “Is there anything I can help with today? I feel like it’s too early for me to go home.”

“I take it Ms. Yamada gave you guys an exam, then?” She asked.

“Yeah, she did,” I said. “Does she always let us out early when she gives us an exam?”

“Unless Mr. Sakamoto tells her not to, yes.”

“Why can she do that?”

“Are you complaining about getting to leave early? I never thought anybody would be upset about that,” Mrs. Ikeda said, amused by my question.

“I’m just curious,” I explained.

“Mr. Sakamoto only cares that the “A” class is among the top of each exam. As long as that happens, anything goes. Ms. Yamada happens to be a very efficient teacher, so 2-A has always been top-scoring. She may not look it, but Ms. Yamada is probably the best teacher in all of Tokyo, maybe even Japan.”

“Oh, ok,” I said, pretending to understand what she had said. “Anyways, is there anything I can help with?”

“Nothing in particular. Thanks for the offer though,” she told me. “Feel free to read some books or use one of the computers. If you want, I have some paper if you’d like to draw.”

“I think I’ll read,” I said as I headed to the second floor. “Thank you.”

I stayed in the library for an hour and a half, skimming through various books. Nothing looked particularly interesting, aside from an encyclopedia of modern art, which contained a surprising number of manga illustrations. Once I finished flipping through the pages, I decided to get something from the vending machines by Ms. Yamada’s classroom. Mrs. Ikeda was no longer at her desk, so I left without saying goodbye. Walking through the empty halls felt eerie, but calming at the same time.

As I reached the vending machine, I heard someone get up and hand their packet to Ms. Yamada, then walk out the door.

“Did you just guess on the material?” Riku asked as he emerged from the classroom.

“No,” I replied. “At least I don’t think I did.”

Riku muttered something under his breath, though I couldn’t tell what.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “You want to get lunch?”

“Weren’t you going to do something with your girlfriend?”

“After school, yeah. The rest of the school still has, like, four hours of class though.”

“Ok,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”

“I’ll leave that up to you,” he answered. “As long as it tastes good.”

I led the way to Oji’s beat-up old building. Once we stood in front of it, Riku turned his head to me.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Trust me,” I said, echoing Mr. Fujiwara’s words. We walked inside and were greeted by Mr. Fujiwara almost immediately.

“How’s it going kiddo?” He asked.

“I’m doing alright,” I answered. “I brought a friend today.”

“Really?” He asked, looking at Riku. “Today’s bowl is on me, then.”

“Can you afford that?” I asked. He’d been feeding me at low or no cost for a solid week.

“Call it an ‘investment’ in a customer,” he said as he prepared two bowls of my usual. “So what’s your friend’s name?”

“I’m Riku Sasaki,” Riku replied with a wave. “I’m in Touma’s class at Asuka.”

“So I’d figured,” Mr. Fujiwara said as he slid us our bowls. “Enjoy!”

“Thanks for the food!” Riku and I said in unison. I downed my noodles in the usual fashion, but Riku just stared at his bowl.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, wiping broth from my cheek.

“There’s no meat?” He asked, puzzled.

“Don’t worry about that,” I explained. “Just eat.”

I watched his expression change from “unsure” to “amazed” as he ate the entire bowl just as quickly, if not quicker than I had.

“This is so good!” He exclaimed. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this!”

“What do you want to do until school’s over?” I asked.

“Arcade?” He suggested.

“If you want to play games we can just go to where I live,” I explained. “I’d rather not spend money if I don’t have to.”

“How close do you live?” Riku asked, spinning on his barstool’s seat.

“Like five minutes away,” I answered as I stood from my seat. “Thanks for the food Mr. Fujiwara!”

“No problem kiddo,” Mr. Fujiwara replied with a wave as Riku and I left the shop.

“Are you sure it’s ok for us to go to your house?” Riku asked.

“Takahashi isn’t home right now, and Sana is supposed to be in class,” I answered. “So we should be fine.”

“If you say so.”

We quickly arrived at the base of the apartment’s staircase; as I walked up, I noticed Riku was still at the bottom of the stairs.

“Are these safe?” He asked with a concerned expression.

“Relatively,” I grinned down at him.

“I’m not sure I trust you…”

“It’s fine dude, seriously.”

We walked into the apartment, whose lights were still on. I plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV along with the Funsation.

“What are we going to play?” Riku asked.

“Uber Slash Bros?” I suggested. “Or Battlezone?”

“Let’s play Battlezone,” he said as he sat on the couch. “We have like two hours, right?’

“Something like that,” I replied.

We played fifteen rounds of team deathmatch before we got bored. Riku was surprisingly good at Battlezone, even better than I was.

“Do you have Battlezone at your house?” I asked; if he did, then we could play together more often.

“Yeah, and USB,” he said. “I play USB more than Battlezone though. Do you want me to add you to my friends list?”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” I answered. “I’ll send you my username later. We should probably go back to the school now though; I have to pick up my sister from Meio.”

I made sure to turn off the lights before we left this time because I knew Takahashi would get mad if he knew that they had been left on all day; that wasn’t something I wanted to risk. We left the apartment and walked to Meio together. Once we got there, Riku turned around and looked at me.

“You’d better add me when you get the chance,” he said. “I’m looking forward to crushing you at USB.”

“I’ll add you when I get home,” I assured him.

“Ok, see you later then,” he said as he continued to Asuka.

I waited at Meio’s gates for about five minutes before I saw Sana emerge from them. She was surrounded by a group of girls who were all talking and giggling, as if they were talking about something funny. The group dispersed, and Sana walked over to me.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Oh we were making fun of a kid who was teasing me,” she explained.

“Why were they making fun of you?”

“I don’t really know, I didn’t listen to him.”

“Then why were you laughing at him?”

“Because he cried like a baby when I kicked him in the...”

“I think I get it,” I said, feeling bad for the poor kid. “Did you get into trouble?”

“Nah, the teacher saw how the guy was acting, so she just let me off with a warning.”

“Ok,” I sighed. Causing trouble was the last thing that I wanted for us.

“Can we stop by the FamilyMart? I’m thirsty,”

“Do you have any money?”

“No,” she pouted.

“Then how do you expect to get a drink?” I asked, flipping through the contents of my wallet. “I don’t think I have enough for two drinks.”

“Lemme see your wallet,” she said as she snatched it from my hands. She counted the four 1000-yen notes in my wallet, then looked at me. “Liar.”

I had been able to save a lot of money on food over the last week because of how often Mr. Fujiwara had fed me for free, though I kind of felt bad for keeping the extra money.

“You can get a matcha or something,” I said as we started walking. “No food though.”

“Ok!” She said with a triumphant grin. She had always been able to get what she wanted from just about anyone. I shuddered at the thought of her becoming fully aware of her manipulative abilities.

We stopped at the FamilyMart, where Sana ran in and bought a matcha for her and a canned coffee for me. We drank our drinks as we walked the rest of the way to the apartment, where I saw Takahashi’s car parked on the curb. I still couldn’t believe that he drove around in that piece of crap, just because it was from an anime; I admired his dedication to the fandom, though. We escalated the stairs and entered the apartment.

“Oh, you’re back,” Takahashi said from the couch, looking away from the TV. “How was school?”

“Good,” Sana answered as she walked to our room.

“You?” Takahashi asked, looking at me.

“We had a mock exam, so Ms. Yamada let us out when we finished it. I came home a little more than two hours after class had started, then went to pick up Sana,” I explained. “Overall it was pretty good, I guess.”

“Do you have work today?”

“No, just Friday’s and the weekend, I think,” I said; I had forgotten when I worked. “I’ll ask Yua, just in case.”

“Ok,” Takahashi sighed, looking back at the TV. “Let me know.”

I messaged Yua as I walked into our room.

Hey, do I need to come in today? I forgot (>_<)

As I sat down in the corner of the room, Yua answered my message.

Yes you do (lol). You work Monday through Friday with me (^_^)

­ I replied with:

Ok I’ll be there in a few minutes then (*-*)

I stood up and grabbed a change of clothes, then walked into the bathroom and changed. As I took off my shirt, I caught a glimpse of the scar on my forehead. It was mostly healed, but it was still there. Luckily, my hair covered it up, so I didn’t have to worry about anybody seeing it. I finished changing and walked out of the bathroom.

“Takahashi?” I asked as I walked into the living room.

“What’s up?”

“I have to go to work. Could you do me a favor and add my friend to your friends list on Funstation so I can play with him later?”

“Sure, just text me his tag and I’ll do it,” he replied as he turned on the console. “See you when you get back. Be safe.”

“Will do,” I said as I left the apartment. Clouds had started to form, though they didn’t look like rain clouds. A cool breeze whisked me along as I walked to the bookstore; I definitely needed to buy a jacket. As I walked to the second floor of Summit, I noticed a line of twenty or so people feeding out of Wonderland.

“What’s going on here?” I asked Yua as I grabbed my apron from the storage room.

“We have a manga sale today to clear out our older stock,” she explained. “Buy one, get one free. It’s a good thing you got here on time though. I thought you were going to miss work.”

She looked at me with a mix of disappointment and pity.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I really didn’t feel good about making her mad. “Please don’t look at me like that. It hurts.”

She laughed at me and said, “Just get to work dummy. I’m going to take care of the register, so you just manage the customers.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said as she walked to the register.

Once the customers had picked the shelves clean of our last manga, we had to put out all of the new manga from the storage room. My hands felt weird after touching so much plastic and cardboard, almost like I had been wearing latex gloves for hours. Once we finished with the stocking, we had to clean up all of the cardboard boxes. By the time we were done with that, it was time to close the shop.

“You hungry?” Yua asked as we locked the door.

“Very,” I said as my stomach grumbled.

“Café or WcDonalds?”

“Is the Café even open?’

“They close at ten,” she said. “You want to go there?”

“Yeah, I’m not in the mood for fast-food,” I said as I opened the Café door. We ordered sandwiches and chai; apparently, that combination was Yua’s go-to choice for dinner.

“How was todays test for you? You were done insanely fast,” Yua asked as we sat down with our food.

“I thought it was easy,” I replied. “What about you?”

“I finished before Riku, which was weird. Maybe because there were a lot of reading comprehension questions?”

“Maybe. He seems like he’s better at math than anything else,” I said, though I couldn’t explain why I felt that way; he definitely gave off a STEM vibe to me.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how it is,” she sighed. “He’s always been the top student even though he’s not great with reading. It’s because the tests are mostly science or math.”

“That seems dumb,” I said as I finished my sandwich.

“Yeah,” she sighed again.

We sat in silence as she finished her food and I sipped on my tea.

“What do you like besides books?” I asked; the silence was killing me.

“Not a whole lot,” she replied as she stared at her tea. “I like watching movies of the books I read. And anime. Music too, I guess.”

“What kind of music?”

“Everything, pretty much.”

“Very specific,” I groaned.

“Incredibly,” she giggled. “We should get going before it gets too late.”

We left the Café and the shopping complex, then went on our separate ways. The streetlamps were lit, and the sun had set completely over the skyline, which made the temperature drop considerably. I hurried on my way home as to avoid catching a cold. As I opened the door to the apartment, I saw Takahashi playing games on the couch with his headset on.

“Who are you playing with?” I asked as I took a seat next to him.

“That friend you had me add earlier. He’s pretty good at Battlezone.” Takahashi answered without taking his eyes off of the TV.

“Oh ok. Where’s Sana?”

“She’s asleep, I think. Maybe on her phone?”

“Can I play with my friend after you finish this game?”

“Yeah, sure. Why don’t you go shower first?”

“Are you saying I’m stinky?” I asked, mildly irritated by the implication.

“Yes, go shower.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled as I walked towards the bathroom. As I walked past our room, I saw Sana laying awake with her phone propped up next to her. She was watching some kind of anime, though I couldn’t tell which one.

“I didn’t think you liked anime?” I asked.

“Gahhhh!” She exclaimed. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry,” I smirked. I picked up my pajamas and went to the shower. I turned the faucet, which was still wet from earlier use, and water came flying from the shower head. I shut the bathroom door and let the steam from the hot water fill the room, just like a sauna. I sat on the floor for a few minutes before I hopped into the shower; I made sure to keep my shower brief. Two minutes later, I left the bathroom in my pajamas and walked into the living room.

“Can I play now?” I asked Takahashi.

“Yeah,” he said as he took off his headset. “See you in the morning. Make sure you…”

“Turn off the lights when I’m done, yeah, yeah,” I interrupted. “Goodnight.”

I sat down on the couch and put on the headset, only to be greeted by an uncharacteristically high-pitched squeal.

“God, Riku! Could you not?” I said, nearly shouting.

Hahahahahaha!

“Dude, really?”

Sorry dude, I thought it’d be funny.

“Maybe it was a little bit,” I said with a grin.

What do you want to play?

“Does Uber Slash Bros sound good?”

Sure, but I hope you know I won’t go easy on you.

I laughed, then said, “I hope you don’t.”